A nine-year-old British Columbia Girl Guide (Canada’s version of Girl Scouts) and her mother have started a petition urging the organization to stop the use of genetically modified ingredients in their cookies.
Maya Fischer and her mother, Linda Cirella, residents of Victoria, British Columbia, currently have over 25,000 signatures on their Change.org petition to ban GMOs from Girl Guide cookies. Cirella, a Guide Leader, and her daughter are refusing to eat or sell the cookies until the Girl Guides of Canada agree to go organic.
The petition states: “Each Girl Guide is required to sell 24 boxes. Our family is so conflicted about this. We don’t eat the cookies or buy them, we are refusing to sell cookies with unsafe GMO ingredients to our friends and family. We want to sell cookies that are healthy, safe for the earth, and that all Girl Guides can be proud of.”
In an interview with CTV News, Fischer adds, “it’s kind of gross that there’s GMO in a cookie, in cookies, and we’re expected to sell them.” She points out that the Girl Guide motto calls on girls to be true to themselves, and to make the world a better place through their actions.
“One person alone can’t make the biggest difference, but when there’s a lot of people together – that can make a difference,” she stated.
Although the Girl Guides have improved their cookies in the past by switching to boxes made from recycled materials, and have stopped including trans fats, spokeswoman Laurie Hooker does not believe that stopping the use of GMOs is financially feasible.
In response to the petition, she stated, “we don’t have the donations that come from government funding, we’re not able to apply for gaming grants. If consumers choose not to purchase [our cookies], they’re really denying the girls the program and the great things that we do.”
Hooker’s proposed course of action to Fischer and Cirella was to encourage them to work on changing government GMO regulations. Although the Girl Guides’ financial worry is understandable, simply dismissing the petition instead of looking for a way to address it within the organization is disappointing.
If enough members of the Girl Guides of Canada join together in the fight against GMOs, other organizations will likely be inspired to follow suit. This would then in turn send a strong message to the Canadian government to change its policies.
Cirella states, “the more people learn about it, I think more and more people will support it. And I’m really hoping Girl Guides will step up and just say, ‘You know what?’ We can be leaders in this.”
If you would like to sign the Change.org petition to eliminate GMOs from Girl Guide cookies, it is available here.
-The Alternative Daily
Sources:
http://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-girl-guide-petitioning-for-gmo-free-cookies-1.1494750
http://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/girl-guides-of-canada-take-all-gmo-ingredients-out-of-girl-guide-cookies
http://www.change.org/gmogirlguidecookies
